Andrew Nations was brewing his own beer out of their home, and Lindsay Nations had become part of D.C.-based beer blog, DCbeer.com.

"We were hanging out with beer people, interviewing beer people, putting on tastings, everything we did revolved around beer," she said.

Once Lindsay Nations finished her MBA in D.C., the couple moved back to Shreveport, where they saw a lack of locally brewed beer and jumped at the opportunity to open the first brewery in Shreveport since Prohibition.

"We wanted Shreveport to be a cool place to live, and we were frustrated that a city of this size didn't have any type of local product that they could get behind it and say, 'This is Shreveport's beer,'" Andrew said.

The closest brewery at the time was outside of Dallas. They came up with a business plan, met with investors and started brewing October 2013. They sold their first can to Shreveport City Councilman Jeff Everson Oct. 15, 2013.

A week before Christmas 2013, Great Raft's Tasting Room opened. They stockpiled what they thought would be enough to sate the city - about 60 barrels - but it wasn't even close to enough.

"We had beer we thought would last a month but it lasted a weekend," Andrew Nations said.

There was a line around the building to try Shreveport's first local beer in almost a century, they said. The tasting room, which gives occupants a chance to sample Great Raft's flagship beers: Reasonably Corrupt, Southern Drawl and Commotion as well as other seasonal concoctions with a view of enormous tanks that make them.

"We've been very fortunate to maintain a profitable business from the start, and the tasting room is a big piece of that," she said. "Without the tasting room, we would not be as profitable."

Putting on events and tastings at parties and festivals are another big part of what keeps Great Raft afloat, she said.

For the last three years, Great Raft and the local craft beer have grown exponentially. Other breweries have popped up in the area, including Red River Brewing in Shreveport and Flying Heart Brewing in Bossier City.

Louisiana microbreweries have almost doubled in the last three years, from 11 in 2013 to 20 last year, with even more breweries on the way. While this growth only makes the state 43rd out of 50 in breweries per state according to the Brewers Association, Louisiana microbreweries in the state create a combined economic impact of $646 million, a statistic that puts Louisiana 24th out of 50 states.

"The South is the final American frontier in craft brewing," Andrew Nations said. "We've got some catching up to do."

Nationally, craft brewing has become a $22 billion industry, almost a fourth of the entire $109 billion beer market. Roughly 77 percent of all domestically brewed beer comes out of microbreweries, according to the Brewers Association.

Last month, Great Raft's flagship beers: Reasonably Corrupt, Southern Drawl and Commotion, can be purchased in bars and stores in Arkansas, the first time the company's product has been available outside of the state.